Gundam Australia Forum

I've been a modeller since 1987 and a Gundam Modeller since about 1995. There's something about those little plastic robots that I can't help but love! It's nice to find a place where everyone else feels the same, too!

I own a website called The Sprue Lagoon (http://www.adamrehorn.wordpress.com), where I display my finished kits, do some out of box reviews, and generally whatever else comes to mind. I build cars, planes, Sci-fi (http://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/model-kits/mecha-robots/) (Gundam and others) figures and even just started a submarine! My site is always being updated with stuff I'm working on or have in the stash, so please go and take a look around!

Each kit has a full review on it, and all you have to do is click the link below the picture of any kit and it will take you to the appropriate page

Well, it’s officially the start of the Christmas Season, and to those who celebrate it, it’s a pretty awesome time of year. Not content to simply have a Santa Gundam, Reindeer and Sled, I decided I needed to round things out with what else? An Elf, of course!

Check out my 1/144 Elf Mech (http://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/model-kits/mecha-robots/bandai-1144-elf-mech/), a pint-sized Santa’s Helper just in time for the holidays! Where is this all going?? Well, what if I told you that I also have a piece of wood for a base, and some fake snow? Stay tuned!

The final piece in my Gundam Christmas Diorama is now done! To round things out I took one of the 1/144 HGUC Type 74 hover trucks and turned it into a present delivery vehicle. Now there’s a way to get the presents to the Sled Jabber without having to walk them there!

Mod edit: this has been moved from the Catapult. Please post pictures if you want your items to appear in the Catapult.

Title: Gundam Christmas Do - now with a base!
Post by: Mechworker on December 20, 2013, 12:52:27 PM

Even with all five components done, the Gundam Christmas Diorama project I was working on just didn’t seem complete without a base.

So, with a bit of fake snow, a nice board and, of course, a bit of yuletide magic, I created the perfect setting for a 1/144 collection of Christmas-inspired mobile suits. Now I can finally say that this is a done deal, ready for display this year and forever. I’m sure any yuletide visitors will think I’m nuts. You be the judge, and check it out here:

For me, it’s always been about the giant robots. No matter how many I see, I still love them. The first ones, though, that sucked me into this whole thing were the original Transformers, back from 1984! I don’t think I’m alone in fondly remembering being in awe of both the show and the toys back when they first came out.

However, while Hasbro keeps making nicer TF toys for us all to buy, there aren’t any really good KITS of the robots from Transformers. So, what’s a TF Fan who’s also an avid modeller supposed to do? The answer, of course, is just convert a Gundam to a Transformer!

It wasn’t as easy as it sounded, but I gave it a shot by converting the MG 1/100 Ez-8 into a representation of G1 Megatron. http://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/bandai-1100-master-grade-gundam-ez-8-megatron/ (http://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/bandai-1100-master-grade-gundam-ez-8-megatron/). This was one of those projects that took a while to forumulate, but once I had the idea, it was a lot of fun. I just wish there were more TFs that looked enough like Gundams to do it to!

You can tell I’ve been jonsing for a new Dovenwolf for some time, since I got right into this kit the second I got it! Normally, things have to ruminate “in the stash” for a while before I pull them out, but not so for this guy!

Eventhough the machine is supposed to be a sleeves unit, I really wanted to do a ZZ-type green Dovenwolf, so that’s exactly what I did! It is a beautiful kit that is amazingly different from its quarter century-older version, and it’s amazing just now nicely the folks at Bandai managed to restyle and tune up the design for modern times.

Check it out at the link below, and as always, any feedback is appreciated!

One great thing about getting a nice, new HGUC kit is seeing how it stacks up against the old version of itself. Usually, you’d think that the new kit would be better, and you’d be right, of course. However, what’s really interesting is seeing just how the folks at Bandai/Sunrise have tweaked an old design to fit the modern aesthetic.

When I got my HGUC Dovenwolf, I was very excited, because the original was one of the first Gundam kits I’d ever built. I was eager to finish it and not only see how far my skills had come, but also to see how the design had evolved.

Thankfully, I’m able to say that I have gotten better in the past 15 years of modelling. As much as I’ve changed, though, so has the Dovenwolf! The new one is actually almost completely different from the original, despite being extremely similar! Confused? Well, the best way to describe it is just to show it to you!

I’ve put up some interesting comparison pictures of the new vs. the old, so you can see just how things have changed. Just as the new Jegan kit leaves the old one in the dust, so too does the Dovenwolf! Check out the head-to-head competition below!

There are an awful lot of mech animes that take themselves pretty seriously. That makes building kits from those shows seem more “legit”, since, let’s face it, war is a serious business. Heck, even the comedic mech shows can tend to delve into the darker side of things once the giant robots start fighting.

That’s one thing that’s great about Keroro Gunso (Sgt. Frog); it NEVER seems to take ANYTHING seriously! This irreverence is makes building a kit from this show a lot of fun. However, what happens when you apply serious skill to a kit that’s more akin to a toy? Well, I decided to find out!

Check out my 1/12 Keroro Robo Mk. II. It’s a comedic fighting machine that I built seriously, for fun. Huh? Yeah, I know, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it was a lot of fun! http://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/model-kits/mecha-robots/bandai-112-keroro-robo-ii/ (http://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/model-kits/mecha-robots/bandai-112-keroro-robo-ii/)

If it’s one thing I love, it’s a Mobile Suit with a lot of guns. I mean, hand-to-hand combat in a giant robot is fun, but really, if you can load it with guns and missiles, why not? Given that so many mecha are like that anyway, is it any surprise a lot of people refer to them as “walking tanks” (even though they’re technically not)?

Well, what happens when you take the “walking” out of the equation? You’re left with “Tank”. Generally, I’m a fan of Zeon, but I like Federation suits better. One exception to that rule is the Guntank. I’ve never really seen a use for the original Guntank, and there’s never been a kit of it that’s good enough to make me care to build it. Until now.

The last thing I needed was something that would take up a lot of space, let alone NOT be a true MS. However, after looking over the Master Grade Guntank, I was hooked! Check out my out of box review, and see how Bandai managed to get even ME to buy one!

If you want to sell me a mech kit, it doesn’t take much; either put a beam shield on it or guns on its shoulders, and it’s almost a guaranteed sale!

I guess the folks at Bandai must have read my mind when they released the first ReZEL Command type, since it had a nice over-the-shoulder cannon. Of course, at the time, I didn’t know they were going to release a Defenser ReZEL with TWO cannons on it! Thus, when that kit came out, I had to buy it as well. You’d swear they did it on purpose!

The Defenser ReZEL is a very cool kit, and with all the wings, engines and pointy bits, it looks amazingly mid-‘80s will still also retaining a very modern vibe. All said and done, it was a blast to build and looks great on a shelf. Check out my build here, and let me know what you think!

Looking at the last few Non-UC Gundam stories, I’ve felt a little let down. I totally disliked almost all aspects of Reconguista in G, and even most of the mechanical designs did nothing for me. I only bought two kits, if that tells you anything!

However, I did enjoy AGE. I seem to be in the minority, but I liked the show and always found the kits to be a good ‘impulse buy’ when I was at the hobby shop. There was a lot of variety in the designs, but most of them were interesting. I particularly liked the way the Vagan suits all seemed to have weird features, like tails!

That’s why I was really taken with the Legilis: It’s a Gundam, but with a tail! It’s also extremely cool-looking and very, very lithe. Usually I end up getting the heavy-armour-types, but the Legilis justlooked so fast, even standing still!

I was digging through the stash the other day and it occurred to me that it’s been a while since I heard about AGE at all, and I thought I’d share a quick Out of Box review of the Legelis. If you like your Gundams with a tail and wings, you’re in!

Fun thing about the Legilis is that you can separate the head and wings and have it fly around like some sort of disembodied creature. The reason I find it amusing is because there's stories from my home country about a mythical creature that does just that (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manananggal).

I was actually tempted to buy one of the Legilis kits and turn it into a Manananggal but never got around to doing so before they all sold out. Still plan to do this someday.

If you look at artist renditions fo manananggal you'll see why:http://img11.deviantart.net/2093/i/2012/131/b/9/manananggal_by_chetosee-d4zbhr9.jpghttp://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PnjjmHmE344/TzzSUd7w0FI/AAAAAAAAAH0/_-7jJtgWVYQ/s1600/manananggal1___by_Iaaaaaaaaaan.jpg

Just like in the now-classic Christmas movie “A Christmas Story”, I too am the recipient of a “Major Award”! While it might not be the hoped-for bowling alley, and it isn’t a leg lamp (kind of a shame, I know…) it is awfully cool.

I entered the Gundam Mid-Year Campaign 2015, and was lucky enough to be a winner in the contest! I won a set of 20 (Yes, 20!) Build Fighters Try kits. While some might criticize the show as being a big commercial for kits, I’ll say this; it works! The kits are beautiful, right on par with any other Bandai offering, and getting a 17lb box of models in the mail is just freakin’ sweet.

The only hard part was the waiting. I won in August, 2015, and just got these in the mail on January 26, 2016! Good things come to those that wait, I guess!

If it’s one thing I like, it’s a giant robot. Of course, if that giant robot happens to be all junked up with extra armour, missiles and guns, well, that’s just all the better, then! Despite my love of nice clean mecha with lithe lines, it seems I never really build that many of them. I’m always drawn to build the ones with all the added “stuff”.

The Full Armour Gundam 7th is no exception. Of course, one explanation is that there’s NO version of this mech WITHOUT the armour, so it’s not like I had a choice! Coming from a little-known Gundam game (that we in North America didn’t get, I don’t think), the Full Armour 7th is a pretty obscure machine. Of course, it its original colours, it’s also a very gaudy and clownish-looking one too!

I think that a heavy armour suit should look the part, so I decided to totally reinvent this mech’s colour scheme. By darkening it up and unifying the colours, I think I got it looking a lot meaner and more like the walking tank/battleship it was supposed to be.

That's what I noticed when I started really looking at the kit; there were all these cool details, but the multi-coloured paintjob was ridiculously loud, and hid them all in a sea of what amounted to visual white noise, or "sight noise", as I sometimes call it.

For heavy armours and stuff, I quite like military colour schemes, myself.

If there’s one thing that I seem to have a real weakness for (other than obscure planes and loser cars) its robots. I love robots, and grew up with them. Thus, whenever I get a chance to take a look at some shiny new plastic that builds into some kind of awesome giant robot, I normally take it.

Of course, Gundam is the best source for new robot kits in the greatest variety and quantity. When the new series, Iron Blooded Orphans was announced, I have to admit I wasn’t too turned on by the looks of some of the mecha. However, that didn’t stop me from scooping up a couple at the local anime store when I saw a couple that did turn my crank!

One of the first ones I got was the oddly-named “Gushion Rebake”. I didn’t know anything about it at the time, but it had a different colour scheme from a conventional Gundam, and it had both a big gun and a pretty mean-looking overall countenance. Having seen the show now, I am very glad I got it, because it’s even cooler there than in kit form!

Check out my out of box review on this kit. However, just be warned that unlike a lot of new Gundam kits, this one is really tailored more to true modellers than those who just want to assemble the pieces.

with the exception of the big shoulder things this is one of the few half decent looking ibo suits

your poll needs an in between option for the top two, i don't mind kits with less colors but not because i paint them always and it doesn't really effect my spending choices, less colors is way down there on the 'how good if the design' scale

As a great fan of robots and mecha of all kinds, I really wish that there were good kits of Transformers as they appeared in robot mode. Not just little kits of the toys (which there were), but stylized replicas that didn’t transform and just looked cool standing there.

Unfortunately, that’s not something that seems to be out there. However, the next best thing, of course, is making your own! Sometimes, I’ll come across a Gundam (or other) kit that is surprisingly similar to a Transformer, or some other robot, and I can have a blast re-purposing it and customizing it.

That’s what happened when I came across the Gundam Tryon 3 from Build Fighters Try. I was not impressed with this goofy quasi-super robot. However, after some thought, I realized it would make a dandy model of G1 Predaking, and a great way to combine his toy and animation models! So, I set to work modifying the kit and created something completely one-of-a-kind.

Check out my take on a model of G1 Predaking at the link below! There are lots more pictures there. Any and all feedback is appreciated!

While I don’t get as many of them built and posted as I’d like to, one of my favourite types of kit is a mech kit. I grew up in the ‘80s loving Tranformers and Robotech, and have, since then, been a big ‘robot junkie’. Normally, the robots I build are Gundams, but I have a few others from different series as well.

One series I was both thrilled to find that I could still get kits from was the planned successor to the Gundam franchise – Metal Armor Dragonar. I got what amounts to the whole set a while ago, and I thought it would be fun to take a look inside one and see what an old-skool mech was like.

The Dragonar kits are surprisingly nice for their age, and are much better than Gundam kits of the same era, actually! Check out the first of my Dragonars; the half-plane, half-humanoid (but not a Gerwalk/Guardian) Schwalg!

One thing I’m not into, and never really was, is video games. I never got the allure of spending lots of time and money standing in crowded arcades when I could stay home and work on a model. However, one thing I AM into is cool-looking spaceships! It doesn’t matter to me if I know their backstory or not, for me spacecraft provoke a very deep and immediate response.

In this case, I was drawn to the Wave Non-Scale “Solvalou” fighter from a famous (well, not to me, but…) videogame of the ‘80s. This game was called “Xevious”, and while successful here, it was a huge hit in its homeland of Japan. To honour the game’s anniversary, kitmaker WAVE issued this model a few years ago.

I’m not sure about it’s origins, but man, it’s a neat looking ship with all kinds of potential! For something a bit different from the usual Star Wars, Star Trek and Gundam ships, check out the link below!

If there’s one thing that Build Fighters has taught us, it’s that it’s cool to customize Gundam kits. Of course, many of us knew that already. For a good number of us, the more generic types of MS kits (like Zakus, Doms and GMs) are sometimes even more attractive as canvases for our imaginations than the more famous mecha in the Gundam universe.

A perfect example is the GM series from both the original Gundam, and it’s barely-upgraded Z Gundam follow on, the GM II. I was surprised when Bandai bothered to make a GM II, and I was even more surprised when I bought it. I don’t really like the GM II at all, but like all of its cannon-fodder ilk, it had potential to be so much more!

Check out my GM Cannon modification to this otherwise hapless suit, giving it not only more punch and personality, but also making it harder to pin down in the UC timeline!

I proudly admit that I am a child of the ‘80s, and that growing up my favourite things were giant robots. It didn’t matter to me if they were Transformers, GoBots or piloted mecha from cool shows like Robotech or Voltron. Big robots = awesome. That’s true math.

Since growing up kinda sucks, I think I decided not to bother, and I still love robots today! However, there’s something about ‘80s robots and ‘80s mech anime that just grab me and won’t let go. The art style, the character designs and the slightly looser constraints on what was allowed in terms of mech design really combine to make an irresistible product.

That’s why I was so excited to not only get to watch Metal Armour Dragonar (albeit with questionable subs), but to get my hands on pretty much every 1/144 kit from the series! The first one I built was the Schwalg, an enemy flying mech known, appropriately, as a Flug Armor.

Check it out, and see why these simple but awesome kits are some of my prized possessions!

When they said “Everything old is new again”, they weren’t kidding! I just recently went to my local Hobby Toy Central and was shocked to find old Silhouette Formula F-91 kits on the shelves! The last time I saw that was literally 18 year ago! In fact, I figured that these kits had all disappeared and would never be seen or heard from again.

To that end, 15 years ago, I took the opportunity to grab one that a student of mine found in Asia when he was home for the summer. I would have placed bets that it was the last of its kind that would be found on this continent when he brought it to me. Well, I guess that was wrong…

Still, the timing couldn’t be better, since I can show off my old-new-oldly new new kit (you followed that, right?) and be right on the bandwagon! So, check out my RXF-91 Kai Silhouette Gundam at the link below, and let the retro robot assault begin!

I do love building Gundam kits, and other mecha besides as well. However, mecha aren't the only things I build! While I’m not as hardcore into all the fine details as many armour guys out there, I do like me some good old ground-pounding, mud-churning armour to build once in a while. I rarely, of course, indulge in larger or more expensive kits (the Takom G6 Rhino is a dream of mine, and likely will be for a long time to come). No, I prefer simpler, smaller more (gasp!) fun kits.

To me, that means old-school, small-scale stuff, like Fujimi and Matchbox 1/76. Of the two, it’s no surprise to most who know me that Matchbox kits are my absolute favourites. I LOVE them, and I am forever glad that Revell seems to reissue them regularly. One such kit that got a reissue just recently was the 1/76 Pak 40 and Sdkfz. 11 halftrack, one of the larger “multi sets” that Matchbox originally came out with to expand their armour range.

While Gundams themselves aren’t as customizable, being the “main characters”, supporting mecha lend themselves to any and all kinds of imagination, reimagination and customization. It helps that the Gundam kits that Bandai cranks out are so well-made and forgiving, it allows for a lot of parts swapping and alteration without the worry of ruining a kit or having to do a tonne of scratchbuilding, unless, of course, you want to.

A perfect candidate for this kind of treatment is the Re/100 Efreet from the recent Reborn 100 line of large scale, but simplified and lower-cost kits. Given the Efreet’s bad-arsed appearance, I decided to customize mine into what it would look like if the Efreet had been produced for at least ace use, instead of the Gouf.

The result is the Efreet Blazer custom, portrayed in the colours of Norris Packard from the excellent 8th MS series. Check it out, and let me know what you think!

Even if it’s a loser car, with a loser engine (which it is), I still like to try and make the interior and chassis of a car kit look as good as possible. Of course, when you’re talking about the make-work-project that is the MPC 1979 Pinto “Pony Express” reissue, that’s not exactly an easy chore.

Thankfully, the chassis and interior on this kit are fairly simple, and require less reworking than the body and engine!

Check out my progress at the link below. This little beast is edging further towards completion!

Since it’s the end of Summer as I write this, and the days are getting shorter, I thought it would be appropriate to put up a display of my “Sunset Stripe” cars. Unsurprisingly, most of them are MPCs, since that was right up their alley!

Check out this collection at the link below, and get your time machines ready!

I’m sure everyone’s heard of an embarrassment of riches, right? Well, what happens when the riches you have are embarrassing, and they’re so plentiful that you get paralyzed by choice?

Well, for one thing, you get what happened to me! At my local show just recently, I hit the vendors hard, and got so many amazing kits that I am a bit stuck for which one to open up and review first! When you’re weighing things like a Firebird station wagon, a four-door Corvette, a BRAT and a Messerschmitt cycle car, it’s not easy to come to a quick decision.

So, I’m doing what anyone would do, when staring down the Magnum PI Vanagon and a Suzuki Samurai… I’m asking for help!

Check out my awesome score of total automotive oddballs, and give me a hand with a vote for what you want to see as the next out of box car on the Lagoon! Just follow the link below, but be ready… awesomeness awaits!

Well, the results are in and the people have spoken! Of the kits I managed to snag in London (Ontario, Canada) during the model show at the end of September, one has been quite overwhelmingly chosen as the “king of the losers”! The winner of this dubious title was the AMT BRAT, that awesome little bundle of tax-evading passenger un-safety!

The margin of victory was considerable, with 71 votes, the Brat managed 17. Sure, that’s only 24%, but in Canadian politics at least, that’s more than enough to win! Given that the BRAT is also one of my top purchases (since I stupidly passed one up years ago) I was more than willing to dive right in and get you guys an Out of Box report on this fairly rare little beast. So check it out below!

A lot of people say that things are “like riding a bicycle”, meaning that once you get the hang of it you can’t really forget how to do it. However, if you think about it, riding a bike is hard. There are a lot of specialized skills involved, and it requires training, persistence and special equipment to get the hang of it.

Flying is very similar, and basic flying training is, and always will be, an important part of any pilot’s journey to the skies. Of course, compared to flashy fighters and bombers, the trainers aren’t as “imagination grabbing”, and so they often get left out in the cold. Thankfully, Matchbox had the sense to help rectify this when they issued their kit of the Percival Provost T.1, the RAF’s standard trainer for quite some post-war time.

This isn’t a kit that I’ve seen very often, and to my knowledge it’s not one that Revell has ever repopped, or at least not for a while. Check out this little forgotten bird at the link below, and bring your sunglasses!

¬¬¬Well, after a lot more work than I thought it would be, the Pinto Crusing Wagon is now done! Just like the real car, this one was lot of headaches interspersed with some chagrins. Thing is, it’s an old MPC, and I was expecting some trouble. Not as much as I got, but I sure didn’t expect a “Clean Getaway”, so to speak!

I’m really very glad to have a stock representation of one of what might be the lamer attempts to add performance through striping. I am now excited to get my hands on the ’77 Cruising Van that Round 2 just put out, so I can have two examples of Ford’s attempts to conjure up tapestripe horsepower!

Check out this little beast at the link below, and be warned: you’re likely not going to see this kit built often simply because there’s so much wrong with it. However, in the end, it is all worth it, because it’s a Pinto Cruising Wagon, and how much lamer does it get than that?

When it comes to crazy, desperate ideas executed with inappropriate haste, advanced-yet-available technology and a good side helping of Teutonic efficiency, there’s little doubt that the WWII Luftwaffe has to be champion. Be it rocket planes that were more dangerous to their crews than the enemy or stealthy flying wing fighters, the RLM and German industry were up to a lot of different things as WWII came to a close.

One of the more frightening ones that saw testing and actual deployment was the Bachem Natter. This was a VTO point defence fighter, more akin to a “Manned Missile” than any other aircraft that made it to service, except the Japanese Ohka. Of course, in great German fashion, there were all kinds of tests and prototypes! One such machine was the first (and only) manned article, Natter M23. The good folks at Brengun have actually made a kit of this little (and deadly) oddity. Check it out at the link below!

Being a fan of science fiction generally means liking spaceships. I grew up with all kinds of cool spaceships to hold m interest, including, of course, those in Star Wars, Transformers and the various anime series (Macross, Southern Cross and Mospeada) that make up Robotech. By the same token, while there were always cool space ship toys to get, as I got older I was a bit disappointed by the small number of mainline space ship model kits that were available.

When I got into anime, I thought that would be rectified, but even then, kits of spacecraft weren’t easy to come by in North America, at least. Still, they say that good things come to those who wait, and after waiting for about 22 years to get a kit of my favourite Gundam spacecraft, the Albion from 0083, I finally managed to grab one of the reissued EX-Models. Check out this interesting low-volume kit from Bandai’s specialized EX line at the link below. Be warned – it’s not like other Gundam kits!

If there’s one word in my car modelling vocabulary that is worth a thousand images, it’s “Van”. When I was growing up, it was the waning days of the Vannin’ craze, and I can remember all kinds of totally awesome, mega-tricked out vans at car shows we’d go to in the spring and summer. Most of us remember those mural-bedecked rolling pleasure palaces as perhaps the most expressive automotive customs ever, even if they weren’t your thing. However, one thing I don’t ever remember seeing was a stock custom van. If you’re asking “What?” then you’re like me when I first heard of the Ford and Dodge factory-made, custom-ready street vans.

As it turns out, AMT even gave us a kit of the 1977 Ford Cruising Van, complete with very loud factory striping! It’s been a long time since it was available, and despite bringing out the custom Econoline “Phantom” van a few years ago, Round 2 has seen fit to resurrect this long-gone piece of model kit history. The new version features some improvements too, like better tires and two kinds of striping!

I love vans, and I love wacky production cars. This is both! It doesn’t get much better than this, despite this things flaws. Check it out at the link below, but if it’s rockin’, don’t come a knockin’!

It comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I like the oddball subjects. Loser cars and automotive failures are one thing, but I’m also a big fan of Street Vans and custom trucks too. Normally, I prefer to get my custom juices flowing by building a model of something, but once in a while I come across a die cast vehicle that’s just what the Doctor ordered!

A perfect example of this is the Zylmex “Datsun Sunshine” custom mini-truck. Chock full of the Hong Kong version of late ‘70s custom trickery, this little customized Datsun 620 is a cool little piece that looks great on display. At 1/43, it also doesn’t take up much room!

Check out this recent toy show find at the link below. It’s an early present to everybody, because everybody likes Sunshine on Christmas!

While I tend to focus on mecha, cars and planes, I do have other interests as well. One of those is submarines. I generally find modern subs to be a little bit boring, but WWII subs generally grab my attention. Of course, the weirder it is the more I like it, and the German midget subs of WWII must be some of the weirdest, and least effective, of their type!

Needless to say, this means I do have a real thing for German midget subs, and I’m always surprised to find out just how many kits of these things there are! Last year I picked up a couple more, and the smaller (kit) of the two is the one I thought I’d share first! Check out one of Germany’s better entries into this category, the 1/72 Seehund. It’s an ICM, but this copy is brought to you by Revell Germany. Either way, it’s a neat kit of a little-known craft!

When most people think of a collection of vehicles from the mid 1950’s, they think of T-Birds, or Tri-Chevies or at least something with fins. Barring that, at least most people think of something with four wheels! However, I am not most people. For me, while they’re visually interesting and neat in real life, cars of the Fifties have never really “done it” for me as modelling subjects.

No, I like the weirder stuff, so when I got a collection of vehicles from the mid-‘50s, it was a bunch of Japanese three-wheeled commercial vehicles! Thanks to LS (and Arii thereafter), my lust for oddball automotive subjects can be at least somewhat appeased! Check out my collection of 5 three-wheelers from the fun and simple 1/32 “Owner’s Club” model series. You’ll never see a Big Wheel the same way again!

Despite building them very rarely, I really do like space ships. On one hand, they really let you use your imagination, since they’re not real. On the other, most ships of which there are kits are so famous that to paint them in other than their “accepted” schemes can often be considered akin to heresey! I’ve always wanted to build my “own” ship, with its own back story. However, I’m not up for that kind of scratchbuilding, so that left me high and dry.

That was until I came across the Wave kit of the Solvalou, a non-scale kit of the main fighter from the video game Xevious. Since I’m no gamer, and never was, I had no connection to the ship, nor did I have any preconceived notions about how it should look, scale or anything else. So, I finally had a chance to get imaginative!I had great fun paying tribute to my two favourite books, the Usborne Book of the Future and the original TTA Book (Spacecraft 2000-2100AD) with this little model, which turned out to be a great kit!

Check out my personal addition to the TTA universe at the link below, and let me know what you think!

When it comes to the Automotive Dark Ages, there are a few certainties you can almost always rely on. One of those is that it was a bad time to be a storied nameplate, because the chances of you surviving with your name intact was pretty much nil. That’s why I love that era, from about 1973 to about 1987 so much; the cars in it were so lacklustre and neutered that people can’t help but want to forget them.

One good example is the Nova. While most people will choose to remember the late ‘60s and early ‘70s muscle-era pocket rockets, the truth is the Nova died a long and slow death, wasting away until replaced by the exciting, modern and much-ballyhooed Citation! (Nevermind it’s resurrection as a badge engineered Corolla…) For me, the thrill isn’t the early Novas that everyone remembers. Nope, it’s the cruddy, wheezy late models, the shadows of their former selves, that turns my crank.

For that reason, I was very excited to finally be able to get my hands on a copy of Round 2’s version of the MPC 1979 Nova – Squad Rod! As if the last Nova wasn’t sad enough, the MPC attempt to create a Police Hot Rod is just, well… disquieting. Check out this loserly last stand at the link below!

Sometimes you get it… sometimes you don’t. We’ve all had off days, but it’s one thing to mess up on a model, and another to mess up creating the actual subject in real life! Well, despite their success with the Schneider Trophy races and the immortality of the Spitfire, it seems that, after WWII, the good folks at Supermarine just kind of threw in the towel. They went from creating some of the world’s fastest aircraft to creating one of the slower, more lacklustre and undeniably more porcine jets.

Early jets, of course, weren’t all successes, but the straight-winged, tail dragging, chubby-boddied Attacker is one of the most prevalent losers of the immediate post-war jet cohort. Of course, because it’s such a substandard loser, I love it! It’s not just loser cars that get me going, total failures of aeronautics also make me smile! That’s why I was glad to get my hands on the Trumpeter Attacker! At the time, there was no good 1/72, so I was even willing to go up a scale and out of my normal comfort zone to build one!

Check out the 1/48 Trumpeter Attacker at the link below, and let me know what you think!

When I started my model site, The Sprue Lagoon, I didn’t really know what it was going to be like, or how long I’d stay at it. As a result of the site, though, I’ve managed to make all kinds of new connections, and it’s really become an important part of how I model. I take great pride in finding and reviewing both interesting, and completely oddball, subjects. One thing I’ve found since I started it back in 2012 is that I now often think “Would that be a fun kit to review?” before I even think of “Would that be a fun kit to build?” I have changed the way I think to try and take what everybody out there in “internet land” might like to see or find interesting.

As it turns out, this has led me down a number of interesting roads, and continues to do so. Seven years after starting the website, I have reached a milestone I didn’t even think was possible – 250,000 hits. That’s big for a site just made by one dude and his model stash, I think. I wanted to have a bit of a celebration for it; do something special, something a bit bigger than usual.

Well, thankfully, I found just the thing! A couple of years ago, I managed to get my hands on what is still the biggest car kit in my inventory, a 1/16 Street Van called “Movin’ Out”. It is a wild, wild “big rig show van” in the most overdone tradition of both the late ‘70s Vannin’ craze, AND the late ‘70s taste for humungous pieces of styrene!

I thought that it would be a fitting thing to present at this milestone occasion; a big review of a big kit on a big day. Check it out at the link below.

Thanks, to everybody, who’s helped make my site successful, and has made my modelling far more fun and interesting than I’d have ever thought possible. Just like this van, you all rock!